A General
by kabukimono
Summary: Sanada Yukiko has always wanted to be a general. The world has other ideas. Modern AU, Genderswitch. "Masamune"x"Yukimura", hints of others.
1. A General

This fic started out as an experiment and a prompt for a friend and grew into something much more. As it's a modern day AU setting, the given names have been changed. The surnames have all stayed the same and I hope it's easy to figure out who is who. The entire "main story" of the fic has been uploaded, though there may be side stories elaborating on bits and pieces uploaded in the future.

Primary pairing is Masamune/Yukimura with hints of others. Each chapter will have separate warnings depending on the content.

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You are a special child, she had always heard her mother laugh. A special child, a girl who acted like a boy, played better with her brother than with her sister. A girl who played with the dirt and bugs and liked the colour red and enjoyed fighting with the neighbourhood children. A girl who could grow up and do many wonderful things, anything that she had ever wanted.

Yukiko wanted to be a general.

Her siblings laughed, her father boasted, but her mother always believed and promised her that she could be, and gave Yukiko the family tradition of the six sen necklace as a promise to her future.

When she was four, there was a house fire, started by a single fateful strike of lightning. They lost both of their parents and the baby, when their father ran back into the house to save his wife and newest child. Their parents had been only children, and when their future seemed bleak, their father's employer took them under his wing, to raise them as his own.

Takeda Harunobu.

He was older than their father had been, with children of his own who didn't seem to care or notice that their new 'siblings' weren't blood related to them at all. Despite the tragedy of their loss, the childlike innocence of new opportunities and playmates soon dulled the pain. Under the watchful eye of their new foster father, Yukiko and her two remaining siblings were raised to be respectful and intelligent members of society.

Yukiko had decided, upon first meeting the man, that she would be his general. When her sister Ina laughed and giggled that girls were supposed to _marry_ men, Yukiko ignored her in favour of trying to get Harunobu to teach her how to fight. Though she had at first insisted upon being taught on the family's heirloom of the jumonji-yari, they had convinced her to settle for bamboo swords and her own fists. She learned well.

It was when Yukiko hit puberty that things almost went wrong, dreadfully wrong.

She wasn't sure what the problem was, but suddenly her limbs felt too long and her body too heavy. What was worse was that she was growing in unexpected places and she didn't like it one bit, no sir. It interefered with her training.

"Saizou," she said one day as she and her best friend Sarutobi Saizou sat around the lake at one of Harunobu's rural homes for summer break. Saizou was also orphaned at a young age, one of the many that Harunobu looked after if one of his employees passed away. "My chest, it hurts." She clutched her hands to it as she spoke, crossing her arms over her torso. She'd ignored it for too long, and now it ached.

Saizou had turned red, making his face look strange against his russet hair. He tolerated her because she was the closest in age. Harunobu's children were all in high school and her sister cared more for looking at boys than playing with them. "That's 'cause you're a girl, Master." A bit of indulgence that Saizou played with her, of master and servant, even though he was taller and stronger and older, by just one year. She still had a higher status than he, due to her position as Harunobu's foster daughter.

"A girl? I can't be a girl!" Perhaps she didn't have all the parts that her brother did, and she resembled her sister, grown into a lovely young woman who attracted attention and gifts, but that didn't mean that she was girl.

If she was a girl, she couldn't be a general.

Going home after the subsequent fight with Saizou, she cried and cried for hours until Harunobu placed her on her lap and assured her that girl or not, he would love to have her as his general. Pleased and placated for now, Yukiko ran off to brag to Saizou that yes she could and no she wasn't so _there_.

But generals, Harunobu had reminded her, needed the best education and training they could possibly get. Training he would be happy to provide in the school he and an associate were opening up, which was built for children just like her.


	2. A Meeting

"Master," Saizou says one day as he drops by her first year classroom late one day as it's time to go home. The remaining girls in the room immediately stand straighter as he enters, nervous excitement blossoming across their features as they watch the interaction. It was like this often when Saizou visited.

"Oh, Saizou!" Yukiko replies, standing up to face him.

She is still a girl, with large eyes and long brown hair. Though she's strong, made by years of diligent training and hard work, her frame is still slender and petite, as though there are some thresholds she will never cross despite how she may thrash and fight against them. Haer body's limitations are something otherwise easily ignored. At the very least, she's never filled out properly as a woman probably should, and her frame is hidden underneath the boy's school uniform she insists on wearing, because it makes her feel more at home in her own body. She looks very much like an attractive young boy, save for the length of her hair and the necklace of coins - the only existing memento from her parents. Sanada Yuki is very popular with the girls and boys alike.

Saizou, of all the students and faculty in the school (save the school nurse), knows the truth. It's their little secret. He gives his master a cheerful smile as he meets her eyes. "The kendo club's cancelled practice this afternoon. Why don't I walk home with you?"

Practically squeals from their audience as Yuki sighs in disappointment. She hates missing even a day of practice. "Of course, Saizou. Maybe we can get some training in."

Saizou laughs, winds an arm around the smaller woman's shoulders. "Again? You kept me up late last night with that!"

Yuki flushes, unsure of what he's implying! Of course she was up late training. She had to hone her skills if she were to ever be good. Though they did not live in a time of war, she could still _train_, even if the type of general that Harunobu needed now was in the business world and not the battlefield. She felt better with a bokken in her hand. "You can go to sleep any time that you like! I don't mean to keep you awake..."

They're being eavesdropped on. Saizou gives a charming smile to the classmates around them as he leads Yuki out of the room. Indignant and annoyed, Yuki follows him only to keep up conversation. "And if you're so tired, I can ask someone else to help me...!"

Saizou only laughs at that. Out of all of Harunobu's 'children' and servants, he's the only one who comes even close to matching Yuki's ferocity and strength. To ask someone else to even attempt is cruel, and while it may be funny to watch sometimes, Saizou wouldn't inflict that upon anyone unwilling.

They're so caught up in their conversation (Saizou teasing Yuki as she argues) that they don't notice the new student before they bump into him. The boy, with an eyepatch of all things, glares at them from beneath shaggy hair as his books are scattered across the hall, growling out a curse and an insult. A quick apology dies on her lips as Yuki finds herself slammed against the wall with a fist in her collar.

There's pain, the breath being knocked out of her lungs. But it's quickly replaced with excitement and adrenaline and it takes Saizou and three teachers to finally pull them apart.

She spends the subsequent suspension from school wondering just who that was.

"Date Tojiro," Saizou tells her the day before she's set to come back to school.

"Who is...?" Yuki asks, glancing from her school work and pulling the pen out of her mouth. She's diligent with her studies as she is with her training, even if there are some subjects she can't understand very well. Saizou helps her with those, too.

"The guy we bumped into, the kid with the eyepatch?" Saizou points at his eye as if to illustrate his point. "He's new."

A smile blooms across her face. Excitement of the type she'd never felt in her life, blood boiling at the thought of possibly being able to cross fists with that man once again...!

Saizou recognizes this. "Master, if you get suspended from school again, the commander is going to have your head."

She just laughs it off. "Saizou, I won't. It'll be fine." She would only be suspended if she got caught again, after all.

It seems that the new boy, Tojiro, had the same idea. The day that they return, they avoid each other carefully, occasionally tossing glances in the other's direction to see if they're looking. Yuki's blood is still hot with the thrill of the fight and she finds herself unable to sit still throughout classes. She can tell, even as she studiously avoids looking at him, that he is much the same.

It is only when the bell rings that she lets herself go, racing out of the classroom to follow Tojiro off campus and over by the river. Underneath the bridge, in a quiet and secluded place, the two of them fight for hours until Saizou tracks her down and drags her home. Despite both of their physical handicaps, Yuki has never met anyone who could match her so well.

"You've really fallen for him, haven't you?" Saizou asks her late that night as he helps her staunch the flow of blood from a cut lip. She looks terrible, she knows this, and her lord will yell at her if he finds out. For once she considers herself lucky to be a girl and privy to her sister's usually annoying gifts of makeup (for hope that her younger sister would one day use it), makeup which can be used to hide the very worst of the bruises.

"What are you talking about?" She mumbles around the cotton against her mouth. "He makes my soul burn, Saizou! He's very strong."

Saizou gives her a glance. That isn't at all what he means. "I meant... never mind, Master. Here, put your shirt back on before they see what happened to you."

Still confused, Yukiko tugs her shirt back on. She knows she should probably feel some shame and embarrassment at being nude with a man, but this isn't just any man. It's _Saizou_, a man that she swears knows her better than she sometimes knows herself, and whom she can depend on like no other. When Saizou spends the night in the Takeda manor, she often finds herself crawling into his bed for the warmth, despite her sister yelling at her for the unlady-like behaviour the next morning (and despite Saizou complaining it makes his neck hurt from the wrestling lock she puts him in while she sleeps).

It's the reminder of her sister that makes Yukiko glance around guilty as Saizou picks up her hairbrush and helps her with her hair. "I, Yuki, would like to fight him again," Yukiko brings the subject back to her new found interest. "I wonder if he knows kendo as well... "

"Don't even think about that." Saizou warns her. "You have other things to focus on."

Those other things to do are ignored as she goes to bed for the night (dragging Saizou along to use him as a pillow). Narrowly avoiding both her sister and her foster father the next morning, she makes it to school early enough that it's nearly empty.

It seems she isn't the only one.

"Sanada Yuki," she hears that rough, delinquent voice say. Spinning around, Yuki sees the man she considers her rival. Rivals over what... she doesn't know, but she's spent the last couple of days rolling that word over and over in her head. _Rivals_. It fits, and she's pleased with the prospect.

"Date Tojiro." She replies. The words feel strange on her mouth, as though there should be something more.

The man snorts and walks past her. He too bears wounds from their tousle the previous day, scraps and bandages on his face. She's thrilled to see that he was as affected as she was, even if it was in just a purely physical manner.

They have an unspoken rule not to fight during school anymore, now that they've been branded as violent teenagers with no respect for authority (perplexing, considering Yuki's past reputation as a respectful and polite young man). Yuki for her part, knows that she needs to at least attempt to study for school if she wants to ever succeed for her lord. Even though it's difficult to focus on maths and history when the air is thick with tension between them.

It builds like a thunderstorm, the air heavy and thick with thunder and lightning, darkening the skies as a warning sign of what's to come. When they break, the storm breaks, opening a torrent of quick punches and hard kicks across each other's bodies and spirits and they welcome the freshness of it. Their fights always wash away any worries that might have, even if the damage they need to clean up is worse than anything before.

Since the death of her parents, Yukiko had always had a fear... or perhaps a fascination for, thunderstorms. Huddling into the bed of her older brother (alongside her sister, who would deny it many years later), she would watch throughout the night as rain and lightning flashed outside the window. As she grew older, she would move into the beds of her lord Harunobu and then Saizou, but that instinctive need to watch for high voltage was there in the back of her mind.

It was this fascination that drew her to that man. Danger danger.


	3. A Storm

By Yuki's second year of school, the rivalry with Date Tojiro has evolved into something of a tentative friendship. They're competitive but friendly, both racing to outdo the other in things from sports to tests, though there's no animosity between them. Not anymore, at least for the most part. When one of them edges too far ahead, the other lashes out violently as they hurry to catch up.

To Yuki, it's liberating. While most of her classmates treat her with respect, it's enough respect that they tend not to engage her, whether it be in eating contests or in kendo matches. With Tojiro, she is open to be what she feels is herself - aggressive and impulsive and she comes home cheerful every Saturday evening with new scrapes and bruises from all the falls she's taken when he manages to breach her defenses. Harunobu eventually found out (and Yuki suspects that he knew all along) and had reminiscenced on his own school days with Uesugi Teru, who's now become his business partner. Yuki was quick to point out that he was a commander and not a general, which is something completely different!

Saizou just teases her that she's really fallen for him and that he wonders if he should be jealous over all the attention she shows the other man. Confused, Yuki tells him to stop being absurd because that's something completely different.

She doesn't know if she's 'fallen for him', but she does know that she enjoys the thrill of the fight that only this man can bring her.

It's one day that they get caught up in one of their weekly fights, wrestling by the river as they try to overcome each other. Laughing with the heat of battle as they deadlock, Yuki only just barely manages to use her smaller form as leverage to flip Tojiro when her laugh turns into a scream of terror as thunder booms around them suddenly.

They had been so absorbed in the fight that neither had noticed the pending storm until it's too late, and Yuki can't even make it to the sanctuary of the bridge overpass before she's soaked through with the heavy rain. She's crossed her arms over herself, hoping the vest that keeps her figure in check isn't highly visible.

"What's wrong with you?" Tojiro remarks as he joins her a few moments later. "It's just rain." Just rain. He's as wet as she is, his uniform clinging to his skin and plastering his hair against his face and over his eye patch. He likes thunderstorms, enjoys standing out watching the lightning flash through the sky if his guardian will let him. But he can't enjoy himself in the rain right now. More concerned with his rival's current state than his own, he crouches down for a better look.

She feels safer now that she's not in the open, but Yuki still flinches instinctively with each new crack of thunder and lightning. Drawing her legs up to her chest (partly to cover herself - not even Tojiro, with all of their fighting, knows the real state of her body), her words are nearly drowned out by the heavy patter of rain. "I just... don't like the sound of thunder." She doesn't have to explain herself to him.

As she'd grown older, she had learned to sleep through the rain, even if she ended up clinging to whomever she was sleeping with and kept _them_ up at night. When it rained and thundered through her sleep, she dreamt of battlefields and war, of Calvary trampling men underfoot as they rode through the blood-covered fields. She could see the battles as though she held the spears herself, cutting through enemies in her path until there was nothing in her vision but the colour red. The lightning played throughout, hot blue electricity that ran through her veins as she met her match, met her match in some unknown man.

Tojiro rolls his eye, but doesn't remark on it otherwise. The words 'weakling', 'coward' die on his lips. Everyone has their weaknesses. Touching a hand to his eye, he's reminded of them all too well.

Nothing to do but wait out the storm.

With a sigh, he lowers himself next to the other one. "_Fine._ We'll wait." She starts to reply, but a particularly loud peal of thunder leaves her stuttering, ducking her head under her arms. Tojiro can say nothing, though it's awkward to watch the man he'd thought was his best match in such a state. It was just a little rain, wasn't it?

"I didn't know you were like this," he says finally to break the awkward silence, the tension. It had rained plenty of times before when the two of them had been in each others company. Perhaps never during one of their fights, but often at school. He'd never noticed Yuki acting like this before. It feels different, strange. Wrong.

"My parents," she finally manages to chatter out, as it grows colder. "They died in a lightning fire."

What does one say to something like that? Tojiro has had more than his fair share of tragedy and death in his life, but it isn't something he cares to share. He won't let it bring him down. He does his best to ignore and hide any bad luck that had befallen him before- though he wears his ultimate badge of dishonour on his face, no one needs to know the truth.

Unable to muster up sympathy _or _annoyance, Tojiro goes silent and the two of them sit under the bridge for a while longer as the gray skies fall around them, lifting a fog from the river. As they sit, he's decidedly uncomfortable. Its cold and its wet, and there's nothing to do but stare at the surroundings. He glances at his watch, hoping it hasn't been ruined by the water, but realises that it's getting late. If he's not home by the time it gets dark, Kagetsuna will go looking for him.

How embarrassing.

"_Come on,_" he says in English, a habit he's picked up despite knowing how much it tends to confuse other people. It comes from years of staying up late to watch old American Hollywood videos, claiming that 'Bond, James Bond' helps him learn English. The songs he listened to also helped a bit, even if Kagetsuna doubted the words 'poker face' would help him in school. Tugging at Yuki's arm, he... he...

He stares in disbelief as the other man appears to have fallen asleep. Tucked in on himself, Yuki had curled into a ball with warmth at his center and the sound of the lightning had lulled him into another place.

In Yukiko's mind, the battles from long ago and the current thunderstorm were playing together, blurring into visions of colour and sound. Mud was all around her, obscuring her vision and drowning out the screams as men's lives were extinguished around her. A light, a flash of lightning reflecting off swords and she focuses on it, pushes forward until her spears press against the man's sword. And his claws - his six claws - slashing past her range and biting into her side and --

The kick to her side wakes her up with a jolt and she gives an all too girl-like cry of pain, snapping away from the sudden assault. Blinking up at him past her bangs, Tojiro looks a little too guilty.

"You sleep too heavily," he defends his actions, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. Perhaps he didn't need to kick her, but the other slept soundly - she would have to be a heavy sleeper to sleep through the noise of this storm. "Come on," he says now as he bends to pick up his book bag. "It's getting late."

Rubbing at her side, offended and insulted, Yuki keeps herself from pouting as she does the same. "It is... still raining," she points out, gazing into the gray fog.

"Kagetsuna's probably waiting for us, _no problem_." His guardian was a good man. Perhaps a little overprotective at times, but Tojiro knows he can depend him probably more than he can even depend on himself. It takes a bit more coaxing to get Yuki out from under the bridge, but after a momentary lull in the rain, the two teenagers find themselves running for the street, only to be greeted with the Katakura family car and one very disapproving man waiting for them with towels.

His back seat will need some cleaning, but for the moment they are getting warm and dry, and Yuki apologises for the inconvenience. "I'm sorry, Katakura-san. If there is anything that I can do in return--"

Kagetsuna, sitting in the passenger's as another man drives, glances back at her with a dry smile. "Please don't worry about it. Sanada Yuki. was it...?" He trails off for a moment, thinking, and Yuki has the uncomfortable feeling of being compared to someone or something. "Tojiro-sama has spoken about you often."

After all, Tojiro needed to explain where most of his scrapes after a fight came from.

Yuki, unable to give them decent directions to the Takeda manor with the horrible light, eventually accepts the offer to go back Tojiro's home. She feels embarrassed, a little apprehensive, and she pulls the towel over her torso in self-consciousness. Her compression vest should hide her figure well enough now, even though her shirt is wet (and she fears, see-through). It's the principle of the matter, a vow that she would live her life as she wanted and not what fate had handed to her.

The house is nice but plain. Smaller than the Takeda manor, but it seems like a cozy home for Tojiro, and his few... servants? There are no women here, a fact that makes her feel just a little more comfortable. It doesn't seem much like a home at all. No pictures of smiling children or other relatives, like there were in her own home. No decorations. She finds it strange, but feels it's rude to ask.

Upon arriving at the home, Tojiro disappears into his bedroom, presumably to change and shower, and Yuki is led to a guest bathroom. "I'll bring you a change of clothes," Kagetsuna tells her as he hands her another couple of towels to help. She nods wordlessly, nervously and waits for him to leave before she begins to peel off the wet fabric.

As uncomfortable as she is with her body, with its natural soft curves and her embarrassingly wide hips, she's glad to finally get out of the wet clothing. Running hands down her side to help ease the chill, she huddles over the sink and splashes warm water onto her face.

She's never done this before, been nude in another person's home. She doesn't even like being nude in her own home, but at least _there _her siblings and their servants know the state of her body. They always have, and she's even talked into taking baths with her sister when the weather is bad. To Yuki, her body isn't as strong or as easy to handle as a man's body, and tentatively she raises a hand to cup her petite breasts as if to judge their weight, though she wishes she didn't have them at all.

She doesn't expect the door to open and hunches over, pulling the towel over herself instinctively. Katakura Kagetsuna stares at her for a moment too long and it's only a hyper awareness of how her voice sounds in distress that keeps her from yelling in offence. She bites her lip until she tastes blood, attempting to hide his face.

It seems like a lifetime, but after just a second, the stunned look on the older man's face is replaced with confusion and embarrassment, and he hands her the clothes with a bow, looking away. "We'll be in the living room, once you're ready. You can call your parents."

Yuki's face is as crimson as the ribbon she uses to tie her hair back, and were it not for the sudden crash of lightning outside, she may very well have climbed out the window. He knows. He knows and Tojiro will know, and then the entire school will and she won't be seen as Sanada Yuki, the polite and strong 2nd captain of the kendo club. She'll be seen as a _girl_.

Kagetsuna has to fetch her again when she refuses to leave the bathroom, even as her hair slowly dries from dripping to damp. She's locked the door by now, and it's only when the man mentions that they've just ordered dinner is she reminded of just how long ago lunch was. Her empty stomach thanks her as she finally moves into the family room.

If Kagetsuna has said anything to anyone, there's no indicator of it, even if the man avoids meeting her eyes.

"What took so long?" Tojiro asks between a mouthful of fried food. He's learning how to cook, but after a dreary day like this, the household has decided to order out.

"None of your business, Date-san!" She can't help but be offended and she snaps at him. The worst part is that she can't ever explain to him _why_, for fear of losing his respect. His rivalry. She ignores the confused look that he shoots both to her and to his guardians, and she sits down to eat what they've ordered for her. It's only polite.

"Once you're done, you can call for your family to get you," Kagetsuna tells her from his place next to his master. He at least is eating something that looks halfway nutritious.

Though her mouth is full, Yuki simply nods her agreement, not bothering to correct him. She knew something of Tojiro's home situation and it wasn't unlike hers. His parents were absent and he lived with servants. Someone would pick her up once she called home, even though neither of her siblings were around to drive right now.

She's right. After eating and as she calls her home, she's told that they've been looking for her and that Takeda Harunobu himself is going to pick her up and bring her back. Were she not in the presence of Date Tojiro, who looks at her quizzically as she clutches the phone tightly in her hand, she might have started to cry. Her lord, her foster father, the man that she admired and looked up to more than anything was disappointed and worried for her, and that was worse than any time she had ever made him angry.

Yuki stays quiet until Harunobu arrives and thanks the Date family for their help and apologises for any inconvenience that his son had brought them. She stays quiet as her now clean clothes are given to her and she changes again, quickly, this time without any interruption. She stays quiet even throughout the car trip home, though Harunobu simply tells her that she needs to carry an umbrella on her for the next few weeks as they enter a rainy season.

"Father," she says finally as they turn onto the street to their home. She doesn't consider him a father, not really. He's their lord and their commander, in her opinion, but Harunobu likes it when they call him that and even if he doesn't seem angry, the furrow of his eyebrows and his silence says enough. She'll do anything to appease him. "Date Tojiro and I..."

"You're rivals," he replies, and she can hear a hint of a smile in his voice. Looking up, he _is_ smiling, though it seems forced and... sad? "You're old enough to begin to fight your own battles and choose your own enemies. Just be careful with that man. You're not what you used to be."

Yukiko's confused. "Not what I...?" Before she asks him what he means, wondering if perhaps her skills have dulled, she realises they've pulled into the car port and he's kicking her out of the car, literally. Things seem to be back to normal and all is well!

She goes to bed happy, even though Harunobu makes her stay home the following Monday due to a cold.


	4. A Climax

Author's Note: This chapter contents some sexual content (though nothing graphic or explicit). Read at your own risk!

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If Kagetsuna ever told his charge the secret about Yukiko's gender, Tojiro never mentioned anything to her. When Yuki returned to school, he made a smart remark about her cold but otherwise seems as though he'd rather ignore the events of that day. Yuki secretly suspects it's because she had totally had the upper hand on him before being so rudely interrupted by the weather.

Life goes on. They continue to fight and to compete, and as the days pass by in school, turning into weeks and months, the respect and friendship for each other grows. He helps her study, she helps him do chores. They both hone their skills on the other one, until they're sharp and deadly (so Yuki likes to think). Their friendship grows so much, that when Tojiro invites her over to his family home on the beach for some of the summer vacation their third year, she accepts without any thought. She doesn't even remember to ask permission until after dinner that evening.

Saizou doesn't like this idea.

"Master," he says over the phone when Yukiko talks to him that night. He's in university now, and comes over whenever he can. But he's so busy studying most of the time that he best he can do is talk to her on the phone every night. He's joked before that he spends more time talking to her than any of his girlfriends, even the clingy one who sleeps over. "I don't know if that's a good idea. Sharing a space with another man? What if he tries to get you to s--"

Yukiko cuts him off. "It'll be fine, Saizou! I will wear my vest and make sure I don't change in front of him. It's only for a week."

"Spending all this time with him. A man could get jealous, you know." He's teasing her again, as he tends to do. Being over the phone, he doesn't see the way Yukiko frowns and blushes.

"There's certainly nothing to be jealous over!" She cries, and they spend the next few minutes going back forth.

She'll wear her vest, and make sure to bring enough undershirts for her to comfortably swim and fight in. It's a genius and fool-proof plan, she thinks, as she and Tojiro sit in the backseat of Kagetsuna's car on the highway. Even though Saizou continues to make fun of her - using the text messaging feature of the phone she's finally been convinced into carrying - Yukiko decides that she won't worry about it.

Yuki likes summer.

She likes the heat from the sun, blazing down evenly and warming her from head to toe. She's never burned, luckily, but tends to tan a lot when she's out in the sun, even when her sister tells her how unladylike it is to have dark skin. When working out in the summer, she's never felt more in her element, as though the heat from the sun could go right through her body and into her fists.

"That's a little weird," Tojiro snorts when she tells him this as they set foot into the house.

It's smaller than Tojiro's regular house in the city. Here too, there are no indicators that this was once a family house, and the rooms are dusty and dry with misuse. When she tries to ask Kagetsuna about it, he changes the subject, telling her that the two teenagers are going to have to share a room. Yuki is undisturbed by this...

-- or at least she thinks she is until Tojiro begins to change in front of her.

"W-what are you doing, Date-san?" Clutching her bag to her chest, she can't help but try to hide her burning face. She's seen him shirtless before, but he's taken off his--!

Tojiro gives her a confused glance. "Changing, _you see?_. We'll go out swimming later. Get dressed."

She's saved only by Kagetsuna declaring that they can swim _after_ they've unpacked and cleaned and Tojiro-sama, put your pants back on. The older man gives her a glance, reaffirming with her that he _knows_ and is also unsure of whether or not she should have been invited. But he can't tell Tojiro no without giving away her secret. For that, at least, she's grateful.

The respite is brief, though.

She's woken up early the next morning by an excited Tojiro, already dressed in his swim trunks and shaking her awake. "You sleep too much," he complains as he tugs the bedsheets away from her frame.

Yuki doesn't _really_, she likes to wake up early in the morning to jog through the neighbourhood. But she was without an alarm clock now, and she'd been having the strangest dream of thunder and lightning, though the skies are as clear as crystal outside. The dream had battered her bones of her dream-self and she had wanted to never wake up, if she could help it.

Kicking Tojiro halfway across the room for the theft of her blankets, Yuki locks herself into the bathroom to change into swim trunks and a tight t-shirt. It might look strange, but it works for now.

The beach is a private one, Tojiro informs her. It's been passed down in his family for a while and they're being allowed to use it now and here they can fight and run around all they like without offending the delicate sensibilities of the neighbours. The last thing Tojiro wants to hear is complaining.

And fight they do. Both take plenty of joy in learning how to adjust to the friction of hot sand and water under their feet, in sandcastle competitions (and knocking down each other's creations) and...

"What are you doing?" She asks as Tojiro pulls his own white shirt over his head and wades into the water.

"_Come on_," he says with his usual cocky grin. "I'll race you to the buoy out there."

She hesitates. So far, she had avoided getting entirely wet, but...

"You _can _swim, can't you?" He asks, getting a little annoyed by now. He doesn't actually know, because Yuki sits out of gym class. The other man had insisted they stay in shallow waters, but now he wants to really get his blood pumping and his body moving. A race would be the perfect way to test their skills.

"Of course I can!" Yuki takes offence to the idea that she wouldn't know, and steps into the water. Unlike Tojiro, she keeps her shirt on even though her fingers tug at the hem of it.

He's suspicious immediately. He'd kept his shirt on while on the sand only to help protect against the sun. There's no reason to keep it on during the water, especially since it'll only cause problems and drag. "Shirt. _Off_."

At least Yuki knows enough English to know what he's saying now. "I, Yuki, am... I'm not taking it off, Date-san." Despite herself, her hands are wandering up over her torso to cover it. She has to think fast, because Tojiro's eye is narrowed and he's moving over to her. "You... you need the handicap."

That does it. He stops in his tracks and glares at her. Implying that she was so much better than him that he needed any kind of advantage he could get? He takes off into the water without any further words, toward their goal, and she follows him just seconds later.

Yuki loses. Despite the stinging loss, she's a bit relieved. She's safe for now, but for how long?

Just long enough for the sun to go down and for them to start a bonfire on the beach. Kagetsuna had given them the necessary supplies, but now the adult has gone back into the house. The teenagers are both 17, they've long since learned how to play with fire. It helps that he had confiscated and hidden the supply of fireworks Tojiro had smuggled into the luggage.

Yuki amuses herself roasting a marshmallow against the open flame, admiring the nice and even way she's letting it burn. She's so absorbed in it that she doesn't notice Tojiro moving up until his hand is wrapped around her own on the skewer. And _he's_ supposed to be the one with a blind spot.

She glances up at him.

"Aren't you cold?" He asks. Now that the sun has gone down, it's getting chilly and Yuki is still in the wet shirt from earlier. Tojiro has noticed him shivering on and off. "_Take it off._"

And now she's back to feeling distinctively uncomfortable. What's worse, her marshmallow is burning. "My food!" She cries, jerking her hand away from his as she tries to salvage it.

It could have been salvageable, had it not then been knocked into the sand as Tojiro tackles her. Tackles her away from the fire thankfully, but her marshmallow lands on the sand and she lands on her back, and she curses her body, curses that she's too physically weak to fight him off when he has the physical advantage of sitting on her waist as he pulls her shirt up. Her arms are too weak, and his knees dig into the sand and her hips as she tries to buck him off.

Yuki's hiding something, Tojiro knows it. Hiding _something_. There's rumours that the other man was horrifically burned in the accident that robbed his parents from him and that's why he's allowed to sit out of gym class. Or that he has tattoos and is in the mafia. Or hideous acne that covers his chest, which is why his face is so smooth. One girl in their class likes to insist that he has a a third nipple.

None of the rumours ever mentioned the white vest Tojiro finds as he finally wrestles Yuki's shirt over his head, despite how much the other man struggles and protests, shrieking and clawing too much like a girl.

He's seen something like this before, though not in person, and as Yuki fights to free his hands from the shirt that's been pulled over them (as her elbows are not as effective as a weapon as they could be), Tojiro finds it easy to unhook the very top of the clasps in the front.

They're small, but real. No longer confined by the compression vest, Yukiko's breast are prominent and pale in the firelight.

Tojiro is so stunned by the sight, that these are actual breasts on Yuki's chest, that he leaves himself open for the hard smash of Yuki's clasped fists against his face, hitting his bad eye. His eye patch nearly comes off at the impact, and it's only for that reason does he fall back so fast, grabbing the strap. Going down and cursing as he presses his hand against his face, he lets the other man... the _woman_ angrily roll out of the sand and run back to the house.

She sleeps in Kagetsuna's room that night, the door locked.

"You knew," Tojiro accuses his servant later that night after a lecture about personal space.

"Tojiro-sama." Kagetsuna sighs as he sits down on Yuki's bunk. "You enjoy fighting with him... with Yuki. Did it really matter?"

Tojiro ignores him. His pride is stung and he's more than a little pissed off. He's fought this man - this woman to an even match countless times over the past couple of years and had never suspected that he might not be exactly what he says he is. And the thought that he is as weak as a woman... Tojiro doesn't sleep well that night, turning over all sorts of ideas for revenge in his head. This is the second woman in his life to betray him so badly, he can feel himself shaking with rage at the memory.

But when the sun rises, he's already over his tantrum. The lack of sleep helps, as he stumbles out of bed to brush his teeth, and he's a little too tired to do more than grump at Kagetsuna for the supposed betrayal.

Yuki is another story. He still can't believe he's not been able to overcome a _woman_, and he shoots daggers at her throughout the day, once he's awake enough to do so.

For her part, she feels miserable and violated. Coming to the beach had been a bad idea, and from the way Tojiro glares at her and mumbles about women, she's offended and insulted by what he's insinuating. She may physically have the body of a woman, but she's just as strong as any man - and stronger than many of the men she knows. She'd finally met her match in Date Tojiro and for him to now discard the results of their battles because he's found out her secret? Were she not so infuriated at the injustice, she might have fled home.

As it was, she waits throughout the awkward day. Kagetsuna thankfully does not leave them alone today. Instead he gets the teenagers to help him move things or run errands with him, and it gives them both time to think.

But that night, Yukiko declines Kagetsuna's offer to spend another night in his room. She can't let her rivalry end like this. She _won't_ let it end this way.

"Date-san," she says quietly as they lie there in silence. She can tell from the way that's breathing, and the way that he goes still when she speaks, that he isn't asleep quite yet. "You are my rival."

She hopes that will help. She considers this man her equal and her match, and she can't imagine ever fighting someone and enjoying it the way that she does with him. She wants him to know.

He's quiet for too long and she almost begins to wonder if he's asleep after all, when he finally replies. "You're a _woman_." He sounds hurt, despite himself, and he bites down his lip hard enough to make it bleed. A woman. Women are weak. They don't deserve to be fighting with men on equal ground.

The room is dark enough that though he hears the creak of her bed, he doesn't realise she's gotten up before it's too late. He draws back, pressing himself against the wall on the other side of his bed, but Yuki's already grabbing at his shirt and punching him the best she can in the darkness.

It's _on_ now, and though at first Tojiro finds himself instinctively wanting to handle her with some gentleness, Yuki gives him no openings. They bite and punch and kick and scratch, and don't even pause when they fall off of the bed in their fighting. Though he can't see and he can't hear anything outside of their hissed curses and taunts, he's excited for such an intense and heartfelt fight.

They finally stop only to breathe, panting for breath and sweating from both the heat from the season and their fight. Yuki runs her tongue over a cut lip. She hasn't been this beat up since they first began to fight, and the rush of bloodlust and excitement is something she's missed. Tojiro's hand is still uncomfortably fisted in her hair, keeping her close against him as she straddles one of his legs, shifting slightly from the wrestling hold they're in.

"See?" She finally asks when she could speak in something more of a wheeze. "I, Yuki, am still myself."

Tojiro laughs breathlessly and finally lets go of her hair. She's still... his rival, as she's been for the past couple of years. Maybe it doesn't matter that she's technically a woman, because she's still the only person who matches him. As his hand leaves her hair, it falls against her leg where he snatches it back after a moment as though its been burned. All right, maybe some things about her gender do matter.

"Date-san? What is it?" She can feel that in the darkness, even if she can't quite see it, and as she tries to shift off of him, she brushes against something that makes them both gasp. "Does that hurt?" She asks. She can't be sure it wasn't injured in their fight, and though she doesn't have one, stories she's heard her male friends tell has taught her quite a bit about it. It's quite sensitive, she hears.

"_No_," he snaps, glad that the darkness of the room hides his burning face. In fact it feels disturbingly good. He's already worked up from their fight and the very fact that he's gotten aroused from it is mortifying. He doesn't need her rubbing that into his face... or rubbing anything else anywhere. When she moves against him once more, his hips twitch up against hers in an automatic reply, a need for the friction.

Her face is turning red now as she understands a little better. She generally doesn't pay attention to sex or anything like that (there's no point), but she's lived with Saizou and with her sister Ina, who's had at least two boyfriends a year since before she was Yuki's age, and she's picked up on a few things unwillingly. That men usually like sex and they like certain stimulations. She had even experimented with Saizou the previous year after listening to a couple particularly juicy rumours spread and had left the situation finding it... well, it had been pleasant but overall messy and dirty and kind of annoying.

But she isn't thinking about that now as she lets herself grind against him, eyes fluttering shut as the heat builds in her stomach. This isn't really sex, not really. Sex is done differently. This is an extension of their fight and of all of their battles. And right now, she's winning.

His shorts are too thin to hide his growing arousal, especially if she keeps moving on him like that. He growls and tries to flip her over, catching her by surprise enough that he almost does so immediately, were it not for her attempting to fight back halfway down. Fingers digging into his arms and her heels against his sides, Tojiro only just manages to press her onto her back, using his body weight against her.

Yukiko feels hot, hotter than usual. This is... this is embarrassing. The room is stifling and he's too close, and she's losing and he's pressing against her and the heat between her legs is hotter than the heat she feels across her face as she flushes. "Date-san..."

"Sanada Yuki," she hears him mutter back, his mouth very close to her ear. She squirms again, pressing her sex against his. She is suddenly, inexplicably, very very glad to be a woman. It seems that Tojiro feels the same way, because when one of his hands leaves her shoulder to trail down his own stomach and push his shorts down, she doesn't try to take advantage of it to flip him again. It's not fair. When she feels the head of his manhood press against her entrance, she squirms only enough to move herself into a better position because this is another thing she refuses to lose to him in.

She gasps, they both gasp, as he presses himself into her fully with one smooth motion, and she feels his muscles tremble with barely-there restraint under her hands. "Fight me," she whimpers into the air, finally adjusting her grip against him into something better for what they're doing. He swallows hard but laughs and does exactly that, slipping out and pressing back in, and she bites her lip hard to keep from making any noise that betrays just how _good_ that feels.

It's another fight for them, another competition. Whoever can hold out the longest wins. Her fingers trail across the muscles of his back and shoulders, leaving red lines as her short nails dig into his skin. Her legs have wrapped around his and she presses her heels into his thighs at particularly hard thrusts. She doesn't like being on the bottom like this, but just because she's the woman and penetrated by default doesn't mean she has to be submissive. She refuses to be.

He's getting close, she can tell, by the erratic and desperate movements of his hips. This makes her smile, despite the throb she feels, and she kisses him. It simply feels like the thing to do. He's taken by surprise, and tries to pull away from her mouth but when she bites his lips hard enough to draw blood he returns the favour with a frown. The kiss is violent and bloody, and something that's going to be difficult to explain when the sun comes up. But as she gasps into his mouth when the angle of his hips changes and he brushes against something _impossibly_ good, he licks her tongue and mumbles something she can't hear because the blood rushing through her ears is drowning out all noises but the loud, base sounds of their coupling.

He finishes first, and it's only because he stays inside of her to catch his breath that she follows, desperately grinding her hips up against his in need of release, until blessed friction does its job and heat spreads throughout her entire body like a wildfire until it settles in her stomach and her still-sensitive sex.

They go silent, save for their breathing and thumping hearts.

"I win," she finally says, a bit proudly. Her hand finds his face in the darkness and she runs a finger across his wet, bloody lip, groaning as he bites at the tip. Tojiro gives one last rock against her before he's withdrawing and slumping over on his side next to her on the floor. She's decidedly uncomfortable again, and touching herself with fingers, it's wetter and messier than she remembers. Still, it's the same as any other fight in her opinion. Fun and pleasurable while they're fighting and wrestling, but the clean up is annoying.

"I'll win next time." He finally mutters as he pulls himself off the floor and staggers enough to fall into his bed. Or someone's bed, at least. It's difficult to see in the dark.

Yukiko needs to go to the bathroom and clean up, but she takes the moment to cast a glance in his direction. "We'll see, Date Tojiro." She's still convinced that she'll win against him anytime with this - "minute-men" her sister used to describe less fortunate boyfriends - but this is a type of fight that she feels should be their secret, and she's secretly thrilled at the idea of trying some more.

And try again they do.

Though they don't talk about it, don't mention it, and Kagetsuna has no idea that anything's happened between them other than that they've 'made up', they spend the every night of the remainder of their stay fighting in such a manner. Whatever they do during the day seems to dictate how they fight at night - 'bed-fighting', Yukiko has dubbed it in her mind. Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she has to be on her back, and she finds that she prefers it when she can overpower Tojiro long enough for her to be on top when they're together, even though it makes her lose faster. Tojiro learns how to use his fingers and hands to touch her breasts and between her legs for extra stimulation. "Cheating!" Yukiko declares when he tries it the first time, but any other protests are drowned out when she can't think past the haze of pleasure.

She's almost disappointed when the week is over and they're back in the car on the way back to Tokyo. Almost, because Tojiro declares thumb war and she stops thinking about it.

"What's your real name?" He asks her when they drop her off in front of the Takeda manor.

She pauses, unsure of whether to answer. But this man is her rival and it's unfair to keep that from him, now that he knows. "Yukiko. But don't call me that!"

"Sanada Yukiko." He tests the name, ignoring her. "_Okay_. Yuki it is."

That's better, and she smiles at him. With Saizou gone, there's no one left at the school who knows her true identity. It's their secret, and one she trusts he'll keep. They're rivals, after all.

"Tomorrow at the bridge?" She asks as she takes the last of her bags to haul it inside.

"Sure. See you there."


	5. A New Development

Note: contains sexual references and some coarse language.

* * *

It's called 'having sex' or 'fucking' Yukiko finally admits later, because the other times they do it, they're not in beds and the earlier description doesn't fit. She can't ask anyone else about it, and spends a red-faced night under her sheets, finally reading all the material on "Your Body and You" that her sister had handed down to her all those years ago.

But, this is different than regular... regular 'fucking', she convinces herself. The people do it in the book do it out of love. She and Tojiro are just fighting in another way, testing all the tricks they had to overcome one another. Even if the result is pleasure like no other.

It's a good lie to herself, because she won't admit that she actively enjoys it when their fights turn that way. It takes a specific time and place, after dark and where no one can find them, but they've started to take their fights to more private places for such an occasion without even realising it. They move from the river to the park amongst the trees and once stop at a hotel on their way back from a all-day bicycling race because they're both tired and need to stretch out their muscles.

Time goes by and school resumes after a busy summer and heated, breathless, busy summer nights.

It's their last year of school and they have exams to take for university and Yukiko finds that they're so focused on studying and tests that they don't have the time for fighting as they did years previous. It just isn't fair.

They improvise.

Just a week after their return to school, they begin to stay after hours in the tiny, practically abandoned bathroom in the back of the school. No one bothers them and it's the perfect hideaway for this, since everyone still thinks she's a boy and there's nothing wrong with two boys using the boy's bathroom, is there? Better yet, the clean up is easier and faster, if not somewhat embarrassing with the other watching.

Even if she doesn't get the same satisfaction from 'fucking' as she does from one of their regular fights, it's enough. It's probably better in the long run, because they come away from this with less ripped clothes and less visible wounds (save for the time Tojiro rips her underwear in his haste to enter her and the marks they leave on each other's skin under their clothes). She's learned a lot from him over the years through their fights and their battles, but she's beginning to learn much, much more when they're together, sharing breaths and quiet murmurs.

Rumours begin to circulate that Date Tojiro, the school's number one bachelor, has finally gotten himself a girlfriend. Their friends start it, when they catch sight of Tojiro's back, adorned with bright red lines from nails drawing blood in passion. They tease him over it, only stopping when he finally shoves one into a locker. Yuki asks him about the rumours one day.

"That's /you/, _stupid._"

"Oh, that's right!" She shouldn't be pleased or surprised, but she is. Her own marks, her trophies stay safely hidden under her clothes where no one can see them. It's both a shame and a relief. She likes being able to show the proof of her battles, but perhaps these battles are better left secret.

As the school year begins, the stress of exams and studying begins to get to Yuki. More and more often she wakes up feeling nauseated and nervous at going to school, only subsiding once she's been able to walk it off midway on her path to school. She tries not to let her family know, because it's silly to be stressed into sickness. It's difficult, because the nausea sometimes persists during the day, especially when she has a test.

The stress is the same reason that she feels dizzy if she works out too much. Not eating the right breakfast in the morning doesn't give her enough energy, and she makes up for it by eating more at lunch and dinner if she can. Luckily her appetite seems to be unaffected for the most part.

It's just one big mess, she thinks sadly. She's gaining weight from the extra eating and she's too busy to work out like she used to be able to do. Her breasts are getting bigger, much to her great annoyance, and she finds it more difficult to strap on her vest with each passing day, as her breasts get tender and sensitive. She never likes to touch them, but they're difficult to touch now without feeling... odd.

Yukiko complains to Saizou one night after she calls him up for help on homework. "--And my vest isn't fitting right, Saizou! It's getting too small but I can't exercise anymore without feeling sick. This isn't fair -- did you get this sick when you had exams?" She remembers him staying up all night several times to study, but never quite like this.

"Not quite," he replies, and she can hear the smile on his face. "I think I _lost_ weight last year. You sure you're not pregnant or something?"

"Pregnant...?" Saizou's being ridiculous and teasing her again, isn't he?!

"Never mind," Saizou had asked a silly question and he cuts her off before she can yell at him. This was Yukiko they were talking about, after all. But the question hangs in her head - as most of his questions do - well after they disconnect the phone, and she goes to bed thinking about it.

It's a question that she probably should have looked up on the internet, because it's the very next day that she faints in class and wakes up in the nurses' office.

She's in the private room, and her vest is undone and open to make it easier for her to breathe. She almost panics until she remembers that the nurse is the one person who knows her secret -- aside from Tojiro, of course. She still covers herself more fully, and her hands come up to cross over her chest to hide it. Just in case.

"How are you feeling?" The nurse asks her as she checks up on Yukiko fifteen minutes later. "Does your head hurt? They said that you hit it." She closes the door behind her before she speaks. She'd just ushered Yuki's concerned friends out of the infirmary, and the secret between nurse and student was one she couldn't break, even unintentionally.

Yukiko shakes her head as she sits up and feels dizzy again. It doesn't hurt - she doesn't really consider that tiny throb any kind of pain - but she'd fainted because she was light-headed. Even lying down--?

"Have you been eating right?" The nurse asks, moving in as Yukiko sways slightly where she's sitting. Gently, she places a hand on the girl's shoulder for some support, if she'll have it. "I've already called your father. He's on his way." And again, Yukiko feels ashamed that she's disappointed him in such a way. He's so busy working that she hates interrupting his day with something as stupid as _this_. Even though she's the only one left at home - everyone else has gone to college - it isn't as though she needs to go home immediately.

"Sanada-kun," the nurse says gently. "I'm going to ask you some things. I won't tell your father, I promise."

"I'm waiting." That confuses Yukiko. There's nothing she would need to hide from Harunobu.

"Are you sexually active?"

That's a question she doesn't expect. She glances up at the other woman with confusion on her face. What an absurd question! The woman isn't trying to tease her like Saizou had, is she? It's... what they're doing isn't... "Am I what?"

"Are you having sex?" the woman clarifies. It's standard procedure to ask a woman feeling sick if she is, especially when they're of the age that her students are in. The younger girl's gone both pale and is turning red, and Yukiko doesn't even have to answer before the nurses knows the answer. Yukiko's hands have pressed against her mouth and she looks like she's about to be ill. Dawning horror is spreading across her features as she finally puts two and two together.

"You can't tell... you can't tell him." Yukiko whispers, feeling mortified. Her second greatest secret has finally come out. She feels more nauseated now than ever.

"We should give you a pregnancy test." The nurse continues, smoothing a hand against the girl's forehead. It's always difficult when they find out or they suspect. There's no way to be certain unless they test her. Yukiko's reaction is no exception to what she's seen before. In fact, she assumes it's probably worse. In her three years of interacting with the girl, this is the first time she's treated her as another woman.

"A... test." Something like what she'd been studying for in the past weeks. That would be simple and easy. But would she be able to take it when she feels better? She's not sure she can sit still right now. The nurse laughs gently when she asks, and promises this test will be much easier.


	6. A Departure

It's positive.

Yukiko does throw up when she's given the news, and her 'father' arrives soon after to take her home. She spends the rest of the night huddled under her bed covers, ignoring even the phone when Saizou calls later that evening. Twice.

She has decided now, that she hates being a woman. Because now she's a _real_ woman and she's pregnant, and it's Tojiro's baby but he's her _rival_ and he won't be able to fight with her once he finds out.

What's worse though, is that she can no longer be Harunobu's general. She finally confesses to him toward midnight when he tries for the second time to bring her dinner, throwing herself into his arms like she'd done when she was child and bawling that she hated being a girl but she wanted to be his general and she was sorry, Oyakata-sama, please forgive her for being weak. She confesses everything into his shoulders, unable to lie to him. She's never been able to.

He isn't pleased. She didn't expect him to be.

She spends the next day in bed again while Harunobu works from his home office, making phone calls and yelling at people loudly enough that she can hear him from across their home. He hasn't yelled at _her _yet, and she knows she's disappointed him by being pregnant with the baby of the _enemy_. He won't even punch her like he does when he's teaching her to be strong. That only seems to make it worse.

She confesses to Saizou next. Sends him a text message and he calls her within the hour, breathless from having run out of class as soon as it had ended.

"Why didn't you use protection?" He asks her. She can hear him walking.

"Like... armour?" Like the soldiers of old had used in battle?

"Like a _condom_." He sounds genuinely annoyed at her for the first time since she could remember.

"We were just... fighting, Saizou." Bed-fighting or 'fucking', they hadn't meant to actually have sex. It had just happened that way, she explains. Saizou sighs, but she can tell he's less annoyed and more frustrated and worried, and he promises to come home next weekend to see her.

The next day is Sunday, and she's called into Harunobu's office to talk to him. Hatsu, his daughter, had arrived the previous night with her own son in hand. She promises Yukiko that she'll be around to answer any questions the younger girl has, and as Yukiko enters Harunobu's office, she feels more nervous than ever. As though she's in the spotlight, and she's always had a bit of stage fright.

He makes her sit.

"You can stay in school as long as possible," he says first from behind his desk, wasting no time. He's getting on in age, and has to slip on a pair of glasses in order to read the paperwork in front of him. He's complained about it before, but Yuki thinks that it makes him look handsome and distinguished. "I've arranged for private tutoring and correspondence classes to begin once you begin to show."

"To... show?"

Harunobu wishes his wife were still alive, or that Yuki liked Hatsu well enough to feel comfortable with the woman's presence in the room. He still wasn't sure how to deal with actual women problems and he pauses before continuing. "If you want to keep the baby..." because he's mentioned it to her just once that her body was her own and the choice was hers. "We can't have you appearing pregnant in school. Not when you're a man to the student body."

Her heart sinks. He's right, of course. Takeda Harunobu is always right. After two and a half years of masquerading as a boy, she could never come out as a woman now. Especially not a woman carrying a child.

"I will do it," she says nodding. He doesn't even spare her a smile as he continues.

"I've contacted the boy's family. They haven't told him yet - that's _your_ decision, but his -- ah, guardian is well aware of the situation and is willing to work with us."

She can't possibly tell Tojiro. What would he think?! Their rivalry had nearly ended when he'd found out her true sex, but if he found out she carried his child--!

Yukiko turns this over and over into her head as Harunobu continues to speak. Custody issues, health issues. She'll need to take vitamins and have check ups and she's going to have to stop wearing her vest eventually. They've already found a smaller one that will compress just her chest and give her stomach room to grow with her child. She tunes him out, already trusting that her lord has decided on the best course of action for her. But she has to make the decision of whether or not to let the father... be a father.

Yukiko barely remembers her own father right now. Nobu and Ina talk about him often, about how hard-working and kind that he was with his children. The kindness that had resulted in his death, when he ran back into a burning house to save his wife and infant son. She remembered crying for a long time afterwards, missing her parents. Could she deny _any_ child the right to their parents?

She's so busying thinking - she should tell him, she can't tell him, she needs to tell him - that she doesn't notice Harunobu's stopped talking until the man lays a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him.

He's so disappointed, and she wants to cry at the look in his eyes.

"You will always be my general," he tells her. "Woman, mother, or not."

She does cry then, clinging to him again and promising that she'll work hard to make up for this, and she'll study as best she can even throughout her pregnancy. Woman or not, pregnant or not, she will be Sanada Yukiko, a general.

Yukiko finally goes back to school on Monday, tells the lie that she had a fever from stress and over studying and that she's fine now, really. She takes vitamins and goes to the doctor every other Friday after school, where she's told that the baby is very healthy and is growing well.

Eventually her nausea subsides and she starts trying to excerise again to work off the excess energy. She's warned to be careful - there's nothing wrong with being active, but she's not allowed to get into any real fights. Not if she wants to be a good mother.

A good mother. That idea is foreign to her. After so many years of denying that she's even a woman, now she has to try to be a good _mother_. She doesn't even someone to base this off of. The memory of her mother is worse than the memory of her father and Harunobu's wife had died before he'd adopted them. What exactly made a good mother?

She and Tojiro... they don't stop having sex. She can't tell him why they should probably stop with their activities, though she does manage to tell him that she's too busy to have real fights with him anymore. She can tell he isn't happy about that, probably less happy than she is, but he'll settle for any competition he can have with her, even if it's competition they don't share with any other persons. They're hidden away where no one else can see what they experience, and though some times are more violent and hard than others, it's those times she cherishes more than the others. It's almost normal. Normality is something she craves as her world continues to change.

He doesn't know why she's gaining weight and doesn't fight anymore. She doesn't tell him. Though to be fair, she thinks, he probably can't tell that she's gaining weight at all. If he spent two years not realising the person he wrestled with on a weekly basis was a woman, than he doesn't notice the way her belly slowly curves out over the next few weeks.

She still doesn't know if she should tell him. She should, she just doesn't know how. There's more than enough chances, when she's sitting on his lap with her against his shoulder as they breathe after coupling. Yuki almost snuggles against him because she's still warm and tingling with pleasure, and Tojiro pretends as though he's not holding her in return as he tightens his grip around her hips to pull her closer. But every time they're quiet, the words die in her throat. There's nothing to say, there's too much to say, she can't...

She runs out of time.

It's just before winter break that her body is finally too large to hide under increasingly baggy clothes. She's pulled out of school, on the pretext that Sanada Yuki is spending the next few months doing specific studies from his home, unable to spend time in school any longer.

Her friends protest of course, but she simply apologises weakly over the phone. "Sorry," she says each time they call to invite her out. "But my father wants me to focus..."

Tojiro doesn't accept it. He visits the day after school lets out for vacation, showing up just outside the gate in the snow and staying there for over an hour until finally Yuki asks that he be allowed inside.

He's shown to a room and waits.

Yukiko waits outside the room and worries.

She's finally taken to wearing women's clothing, because men's shirts just aren't meant to stretch over her stomach in such a way. Her vest has been put away for now, and she has to admit it's a relief for her sore breasts. Tojiro has never seen her look so... feminine. She's never seen _herself_ look so feminine.

Saizou's there finally, his university having let the students out for vacation and he tells her not to worry. "The worst he can do is reject you," he points out, and Yukiko cringes at the thought. Anything but rejection, anything but the loss of their rivalry and friendship. Saizou tells her not to worry, because she still has others to rely on. But he doesn't understand that it just isn't the same.

"Stay outside," she tells Saizou and finally enters the room. She's in luck; Tojiro is sitting on the couch facing away from the door, and she can tell he's angry enough to try to ignore her at first. "Date-san..." she starts. Despite their relationship having evolved into... into whatever it has become, she's never called him by his given name. She won't start now.

He ignores her, but she can feel the tension in the air as he gets angry. Hurt and betrayed that his once greatest rival has abandoned him completely.

At least he hasn't started a fight yet. Yukiko moves closer to him, crossing her arms over her stomach to compose herself. The baby moves, as its begun to do so in the couple of days, and she's reminded that at the very least, she's not alone. Even if her rival, her friend, her... _boyfriend?_ won't look at her.

"I, Yuki, am pregnant," she finally blurts out, in her strangely archaic way, into the heavy air.

It gets heavier.

Finally Tojiro says something, and he turns to look at her as well. "_What _are you--" He cuts himself off when he gets a good look at Yukiko. At her hair that's down and curled over her shoulder. The way her breasts, finally freed from the compression vest, have swollen almost a full cup size and are made that much more prominent by the maternity shirt she's wearing. The same maternity shirt drapes over her stomach and the unmistakable bump within it.

Sanada Yukiko is 20 weeks pregnant.

Date Tojiro stares, his eyes flicking over her form over and over again as though if he checks again, something will change. She shifts nervously under his gaze. She should say something, do something - she almost collapses in relief when he speaks first.

His voice is quiet and the tone is strange. "You're pregnant."

Yukiko nods. "I'm pregnant." He understands, what a relief.

"Is it mine?"

She feels anger and indignation flare up. Why is he asking that question?! There is no other man she's been so close to, so often. The child she's carrying is unquestionably his, and Yukiko huffs as she prepares to yell at him and takes a step forward with her fist raised. But before she can move, he's standing up. Wobbly at first, as though his legs are suddenly jelly, but she stops where she is and waits for him to join her.

His hand slides across her stomach, gentle and nervous and tentative, and they both feel the baby move again as though responding to the contact. Tojiro snatches his hand away like it's been burnt, and he sits down on the floor heavily.

"Date-san?" She asks, peering down at him. He's covering his face.

When he speaks in response, his voice is shaky and light, almost as though he'd been laughing. "It's mine. Isn't it?"

Yukiko's still angry at what he's implying, but she lets that slide... for now. Something isn't quite right. "It's yours, Date-san."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

It's a valid question, one that she's not sure how to respond with. She didn't want to lose the valuable rivalry with him. She hadn't known how to deal with it herself. She still feels strange in her skin at night when she's trying to sleep and her stomach gets in the way of her movement. "I'm sorry," she just offers. It's weak but sincere. If only he knew how difficult it was to be a woman...!

"You can't get rid of it." He says after another moment. "You can't get rid of an unwanted baby."

Taken aback - where had that come from?? - Yukiko steps away from him, just a little. "Of course I won't!"

He looks a little relieved, and seems strong enough to stand and steady enough to touch her stomach again. "Then I can help, can't I? If you're going to have a baby of mine, it's my heir and my child." There's an underlying panic to his words, as though he's suddenly afraid of something. She grips his wrist, even as his other arm wraps around her shoulders as though to grasp her tightly. "I'll support you and the baby, so don't..."

He stops himself from speaking too much and lets her go. "I'll help," he simply says again. "So _trust me_." It's the English that sometimes Yukiko doesn't understand, but it doesn't matter. She's more than thrilled that at the very least her friendship and her rivalry are intact and she hugs him briefly.

"Once I have the baby we can go back to fighting," she assures him, pleased.

He gives her an odd look. "Why don't we get married?" It'll be easier and safer for the baby, if its parents are married. Perhaps not the ideal marriage he could have had set up for himself, but he can't imagine tolerating any other woman the same way that he tolerates Yuki. So what if they started out as enemies? They're friendly now (and more, besides) and she's the best woman he's ever met.

"... why would we get married?"


	7. A Decision

They don't get married. Despite Tojiro's insistence and demands that he wants to help her support the baby, she refuses. She's not someone's wife but she's a general in training, and she can't be what she really wants to be if she's tied down. Or at least, those are her feelings on the matter and Harunobu wisely keeps quiet, lest he influence her decision.

In her mind, the pregnancy is a barrier or a burden she need only bear for just a little while longer. It makes her stronger and gives her more experience. She won't let it bring her down or distract her from studying or taking entrance exams. She's Sanada Yukiko before she's a pregnant woman, and she won't let herself be defined by a marriage, either.

Tojiro stays quiet about the pregnancy, and none of their school friends are ever the wiser even when Yuki talks to them over the phone erhivery Sunday. He visits when he can, even when Yukiko texts him at 11 at night whining that she's hungry and craving a certain food, which he brings over if possible.

As his initial shock wears off, he's a bit more pleasant to be around. He actually likes kids, he tells her one night when he sleeps over. Before he moved to Tokyo he used to babysit for extra money during the summer. He mentions his younger brother once, though doesn't bring him up again.

"This kid is going to be mine, _you see_. He'll be the smartest kid in his school." He likes to brag about everything he's going to teach his son - Yuki had finally decided to find out what the baby's gender is so they can prepare for him - and how much his child will be able to have. All of the best toys, Tojiro promises, and the best education, and he'll have lots of friends and will never want for anything. He promises, sliding his hand against her belly and speaking to the baby directly, as embarrassed as he looks when he does so.

They argue over whether to use the colour blue or red.

"Blue is for boys," Tojiro points out when they're in a store one day, looking of clothes for the baby to wear. Yukiko thinks that argument is silly, because it shouldn't matter what colour is for what gender, and instead what the person likes. He points out that the baby is a _baby _and won't give a damn.

"Red is a good colour. I like it." She's almost stubborn about the usage of red. It's different from _pink_, which Tojiro tries to claim that only girls should be wearing, and is a noble and dignified hue. She wears a lot of it herself, there's no reason that her son shouldn't.

They keep arguing, voices raising though the shopkeepers give them dirty looks, other patrons are offended, and Saizou does his best to try to calm them down. The baby inside of her is also unhappy about the fight, she feels him move around so much she's beginning to feel ill as they exchange words. She hates gender boundaries and it's not fair that Tojiro is trying to push them on his son when he wouldn't do it to her.

Saizou notices that she's breaking into a sweat, and he saves the day. Slipping an arm around both Yukiko and her stomach to support and soothe her, he makes them settle for green and yellow. "It'll be cute," he says. "Like the spring time he'll be born into."

It works, but the tension from the fight stays for a few days.

Finally tired of being treated like glass, Yuki leaves in the middle of the night during her seventh month to get a snack. When she returns hours later, Tojiro screams at her until Harunobu kicks him out of the house for the night. They're both lectured for that. She's putting herself at risk and he's upsetting her. Yukiko just wants everything to go back to normal. These aren't the sorts of fights she's looking for and as she looks at Tojiro from across the room, she can tell that he's not interested in these types of fights either.

When Tojiro skips an important exam because she has a doctor's appointment, she refuses to speak to him for the next two days until he schedules a replacement. She doesn't want him to handicap his future for this. Not for her.

Though they're warned about it (multiple times), they keep fighting when her feet hurt and she feels sick and tired, and Tojiro has no patience to deal with her when she's grumpy. He can't - he refuses to - raise a hand to her anymore, but his words are just as blunt as his fists and when Tojiro moves into her room near the end of her third trimester to simply _be there_, the proximity makes them both snappy and irritable. If she kicks at him in anger because she can't see her feet anymore and she keeps bumping into things in her suddenly too-small room, he lashes out by grabbing her and keeping her down until he's good and ready to let her go. Those times aren't _all _bad because he'll usually massage her feet for a while as they stew in their anger, but she still dislikes being handles in such a way.

As the days roll into April, Yukiko is decidedly sick of this whole pregnant business. She's achy and she can't sleep well, and she feels like she's the size of a whale, something she cries over because she's worried she'll never go back to being fit and strong again. She is never having a baby again, she swears. What's worse is that her doctors are concerned she's too slender to give birth naturally, though she reminds them that she's always had those embarrassingly wide hips.

Harunobu convinces her to take a year vacation from her schooling. She can't attend exams being so pregnant and he'll give her practical training in his businesses instead, he promises. It's a trade-off that she isn't happy with, but she'll have to do it. Just another hurdle to overcome. Tojiro supports this decision, only just barely back biting the opinion that women should stay at home with their children.

Only just.


	8. A New Beginning

Yukiko finally finds herself peacefully alone for a couple of weeks in spring, as Tojiro spends time with their former classmates for graduation. She's officially graduated by now, but due to her heavily pregnant state, is more confined to the manor than ever. She's not even allowed too near the gate, after an almost-disastrous day when a classmate had stopped by unannounced. Even Saizou's at his college and busy, leaving Yukiko with no one to talk to but servants and Hatsu, who has once again arrived to help her.

She's due any day now, and Tojiro is on the second speed dial. The birthing center is on the first. She's always been old-fashioned (sometimes, Tojiro exclaims, frustratedly so!) and has insisted.

Sprawling out unattractively out across her blissfully empty and spacious bed, Yukiko tries to do at least a little bit of stretching with her limbs. She finds it hard to be so inactive like this. Being a woman isn't fair, it really isn't! But... but maybe it isn't so bad sometimes, she thinks as the baby kicks with her movements and she laughs and pets her stomach in reply. The baby's almost as active as she used to be.

Almost, and she aches for the day when she'll finally be able run around and train as she used to. Aches and... cries out suddenly when she feels the sudden cramping inside of herself, stronger and lengthier than the ones she'd been feeling over the previous days. She hadn't known quite what to expect, but this feeling is unmistakable. It's time. It's finally time.

Don't panic, don't panic, she tells herself. You've prepared for this. Hatsu is staying with them with her youngest son and Harunobu has been working from home more than usual. The servants are milling around her, and if she cries out for anyone, someone will come running. They've _all_ prepared for this.

The contraction is gone before she knows it and she rolls out of bed to find someone. She's a mother-to-be and a Sanada and a Takeda, and if she can't handle the birth of a baby (especially her _own_) in a calm manner, then how will she handle anything else that life throws at her? A baby is nothing compared to what else lies before her, if she really wants to fulfill her ambitions and that of Harunobu.

The next several hours pass in a uncomfortable flash. Hatsu has had three children by now and when Yukiko finds her to say that she thinks she's in labour, the older woman knows what to do. Yukiko's made to walk and sit and they try to make her comfortable as the day progresses and her contractions get stronger and faster. It's almost boring.

"This isn't so bad," she murmurs to Saizou once he arrives. She's had worse pain handed to her from Harunobu and from Tojiro, who's still absent, a fact that upsets her more than she wants to admit. Saizou takes over the duty of helping guide her through the contractions without comment, smoothing her sweat soaked hair away from her face. He looks as pained as she feels.

Later, maybe, Yukiko will recall the birth of her first son with greater clarity, but as time passes and the pain gets worse when she's finally, _finally _ready for the baby, she blocks it all out and focuses on what she needs to do.

Breathe and wait, and _push_ as she's told and she was right that those wide hips of hers mean that there's nothing to worry about. And she's closing her eyes and concentrating on the hand holding hers - Tojiro had finally arrived - and the pain isn't really so bad, once she's learned to bear it and much quicker than she'd thought, it's _over_ and there's a sense of weightless relief and she can hear the cry of a baby through her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. The cry pierces through her like nothing else has ever before (not even meeting Harunobu or Saizou or Tojiro) and she can't help but cry herself until she's holding the baby - so tiny and red and angry - in her arms where he belongs.

They name him Daisuke.

Saizou spends the following days at her side, talking and laughing with her as though they were children again. He teases both Yukiko and the baby in her arms, tugging at the shock of dark brown hair on the baby's head. "Stop that!" She cries, slapping his hand. Both mom and baby are perectly healthy and strong, is the verdict the doctors tell her. Of course we are, Yukiko informs them. She takes very good care of herself, after all. She doesn't see how that's funny, though Saizou and Harunobu laugh.

Tojiro sleeps in her room at night, dragging the pullout 'cot' closer to her hospital bed so he can hold her hand while they try to sleep. He's as excited as she is now that the baby has finally come into the world, and she learns that part of the reason it took him so long to arrive was because he'd wanted to buy her flowers for the birth. They're red, just like he knows she likes them. For his part, Tojiro acts as a dutiful father, holding the baby when Yukiko's arms get tired - even if she yells at him once for nearly dropping him. She'd almost done the same.

With a clean bill of health, Sanada Yukiko and Sanada Daisuke are released to go back home two days after he was born on April 29th. Yukiko writes the date down so she doesn't forget later, just in case.

Tojiro had promised Yukiko that he would continue his education since she needed to pause hers, and she worries for him over the next couple of weeks as he tries to balance new college life and his new son. His sense of responsibility is both admirable and annoying, and finally Yukiko makes him _sleep_ and study, because she has more than enough help when it comes to the baby.

Or at least she likes to think that she does. Hatsu stays for a while longer, teaching Yukiko all of the details of how to care for an infant. It isn't quite as easy as Yukiko thought it might be, especially when she's forced up into the middle of the night by the whimpers and cries of a baby wanting attention.

Saizou has moved back into the home, transferred to a college that's closer. "They offer better courses," he lies and lies until Yukiko believes him, and she gets more rest sometimes when he makes it to the baby before the infant can wake his parents. More often than not he finds himself changing diapers, because Yukiko isn't sure how to do it quickly enough and Tojiro doesn't seem to want to bother. There's no words that Yukiko can use use to describe how thankful that she is for him, and it's lucky that both she and the baby seem to adore him.

Even Kagetsuna volunteers to help and takes the baby with him if he runs errands for them. He's experienced in handling Tojiro, and while he doesn't move in with them - the house already seems to be getting full - he's able to swing by often. Yuki is embarrassed to see Tojiro's guardian after so long, but he tells later that he's noticed the positive change in his charge and he thanks her. Children don't always help relationships, he notes quietly, but they do change people whether for good or for bad. "I was worried about the path that he was going down." When she asks him what he means, he doesn't clarify.

It's still not entirely a happy home life.

The baby gives them something to focus on. They both love him dearly, even when he wakes them at night or gets sick and needs medical attention. Even when his diaper is soiled and they beg Saizou to change it for them. He's a part of themselves and each other, and Yukiko hopes he grows up to be a good, strong man like his father and both of hers.

But they fight.

Faced with problems more grave then who had won over who in an eating contest, they fight and argue and the baby cries when their voices reverberate through the house. They don't agree on much of anything, from his sleeping location (Yukiko prefers to have him in bed near her) to what kind of toys he should play with (Harunobu finally gifts the toys to them so she'll accept them graciously).

She's still frustrated at the state of her body, even as doctors tell her to take it easy and let the weight come off naturally. She ignores them, but she finds that she spends so much time with the baby that she scarcely has time to try to resume training. As the baby gets older, Yukiko's able to exercise until she's _almost_ the same size as she was before she got pregnant, though her body feels weirder than before. Tojiro claims he doesn't see the difference. Saizou says she looks better than ever. She kicks them both.

It takes some coaxing but four months after their son is born, Tojiro and Yukiko meet down by the river and fight like they used. Punches and kicks and wrestling moves and she's happier than she's been in almost a year because this is what she wants. This is what she wants, the way she wants it. Daisuke's in his carrier where they can both see him at all times and twice the two teenagers need to stop for Yukiko to nurse him. An odd interruption, but one they both take gracefully.

When they come back home well after midnight, they're yelled at for staying out all night and exposing the baby to the air like that. He's still young and vulnerable, and suddenly frightened, Yukiko takes Daisuke to her room to watch him and make sure he won't fall ill. He doesn't, not that time, but she gains a hyper awareness of his well-being. She won't let Tojiro handle him or play with him for too long without yelling at him. It makes both Daisuke and Tojiro grumpy and it's only when Saizou tells her that all boys need space, even baby ones, that she lets go.

"Besides," he says as he bounces the baby gently on his knee after Yukiko reluctantly handed him off. "You'll have to learn to let go eventually."

She'd thought this before, but she decides that being a mother is really more trouble than its worth. It's even worse than being a regular woman.

Daisuke consumes a lot of time as he grows, and both parents find themselves getting frustrated with both his cries and each other. Yukiko feels trapped and Tojiro has no patience. He moves out for a month to study more seriously and she tells him never to come back, only to take it back a week later when she misses him and his company, and she's doesn't want their rivalry to end just yet. They end up arm wrestling when he does return, and that seems to make things better, at least for a while.

Six months after the baby is born, Harunobu fulfils his promise to Yukiko. By now she can be away from the baby without worrying too much, and while Hatsu has gone back to her own family, Saizou and Kagetsuna are still the most capable babysitters that anyone could ask her. Harunobu lets her work with him.

Business is... boring.

That's putting it lightly. Harunobu tells her that the same tactics that were used on the battlefield four hundreds years ago can be used in the modern business world now. It doesn't make listening in on his meetings any easier, especially since his senior employees tend to disregard her as just another woman (and a single, teenaged mother at that). She hates being a woman, and if it weren't for the fact she was still nursing occasionally, she would have already gone back to wearing her vest and tried to pass herself off as a man. She doesn't know Tojiro has hidden it.

Every night after 'work' she comes home to her family. The people she considers her family. Ina has taken to calling her on the weekends, slightly disgruntled that her boyish little sister has started a family before she herself has, but they're still sisters and Ina is actually interested in hearing all about this. Saizou does most of his studying at home and rocks the baby with his feet as he writes. Kagetsuna watches the baby during the day if no one else is available, and Yukiko asks him one day if he has children of his own when she comes home to relieve him of his duty, because she thinks that he should, all things considered.

"I swore I wouldn't have a child before Tojiro," he answers with a small smile as he hands Daisuke over to her. The baby cries happily and buries his face into his mother's shoulder, grasping her long ponytail. "Though I suppose that's no longer an issue."

Some people were just so... strange.

But life goes on, and as Daisuke grows older, they all settle into the routine. Yukiko gets better at changing diapers and waking up to answer her son's cries in the middle of the night before he wakes anyone else. Tojiro stops yelling so much when the baby's around and plays with him when he can, even learning how to make baby food since he doesn't think his son should eat just _anything_.

Yukiko and Tojiro's fights continue... though they're less intense and shorter. They're equals and rivals, even if nowadays they're too busy running after a baby than running after each other. It's disturbingly peaceful and could almost be called domestic if you were inclined to think that way. Yukiko isn't.

"We should have another one," Tojiro suggests one day while they're in bed. They've only just started being intimate again, though Yukiko can't quite call it that, and this time they're making sure to be careful. She prefers to think of it as resuming their relationship where it had left off so many months ago, full of excitement and fights and long nights of biting and scratching. This time however, they've both sat through an embarassing lecture about the usage of condoms and other sorts of birth control, and though it took some getting used to, they've adjusted. They've had to.

"Only if you're the one carrying it." Yukiko bites back in reply, and she makes him sleep in another room that night.


	9. A Confession

Despite the peace or perhaps because of it, Yukiko finds herself... bored. Her life is a long routine of taking care of the baby in one way or another, helping her commander with his business, and in dealing with her family in general. She still doesn't like being defined as a woman, even if she _is_ and a mother, besides.

Daisuke is growing up well, she thinks one day as she holds his hand when he attempts to pull himself up into a sitting position. He's strong and handsome, with large brown eyes and dark brown hair that can't be tamed no matter how they try. He's going to grow up to be like his father, a thought that pleases her. He's as active as an infant as he was in Yukiko's womb, and even though she sometimes isn't sure how to handle this child, that familiarity is something comforting.

She still finds it hard to adapt.

"You're an adult now," she's reminded almost daily. Being an adult isn't as glamorous as she'd imagined it would be. She can't fight, she can't play. It's not just the baby but the single fact of growing up, because now she's expected to put into use all of life lesson's that she's been taught. But she's restless and frustrated. Since she was young, Yukiko had had plans of her own, and she refuses to take fate lying down.

"I, Yukiko, want to go back to school," she tells Harunobu when the year is almost up and it's time for entrance exams. Daisuke is in her arms as she speaks, and Harunobu had begun to play with him when she had started speaking. She's a bit frustrated as he continues to do so, waiting impatiently until the man replies to her, looking perhaps a little guilty over the distraction.

"Already?" He asks, and she frowns at him. It's already been a year! "Then you may," he quickly adds on.

It isn't easy. She hadn't expected it to be.

Exams and studying takes time, and her son is as demanding as ever. Sometimes, when he's not feeling well, she studies while half-lying in bed with the baby napping against her chest, until Tojiro comes home well after dark. He's not jealous of his own son, not exactly. Because after Tojiro tucks the baby into his bed in his nursery, the two teenagers are can tumble and 'fight' to their hearts desire, even if it sometimes causes her to oversleep in the morning. Though he would never admit it, he's fallen as hard for the woman as she has for him. Rivals or anything otherwise, there's no one that makes him feel the way she does.

One night, they're lying together. His back still stings from her nails, and the kisses he's left against her neck are still bright red. He'd stopped treating her gently after she had the baby, she'd made sure of that. In a whisper against his skin, she tells him that she misses their _rivalry,_ the days when they thought only of overcoming one another. That she's never felt that way about any other person, that fiery spark between them, and she asks him where those times have gone.

He doesn't have an answer for her.

She sleeps heavily afterwards, and Tojiro stays awake, bringing Daisuke into the bed with them when the baby fusses. He watches the two of them sleep, Daisuke's head against his mother's breasts, and he traces his finger across his son's cheeks and over his long eyelashes. The child is unmistakably theirs, and the idea of having created his own family is... odd.

His own family is an unpleasant memory. So unpleasant that Tojiro can't help but be worried about his son's future, especially without the legal binding of marriage to protect him. Tojiro remembers that before the accident that robbed him of the sight in his right eye, his mother had been just as doting as Yukiko. It's a thought he doesn't like to entertain, because he should know better when it comes to her.

Aside from that annoying 'friend' of hers, Tojiro likes to think he knows her better than anyone else. His son's mother, his lover, his girlfriend, his friend, all of that was secondary to Yukiko's status as his rival. Her question from earlier still runs through his head, but no matter how late he stays up, he still doesn't have an answer for her.

But this woman... he's seen what she's like in every situation, from the bloody and painful to the sweet and gentle. When she's angry and happy and upset and sad, and Yukiko's never been anything but sincere and perhaps even too emotional. She's a terrible liar, even with how easily she can hide things, and he can't imagine this woman ever abandoning the son she now cradles to her chest even in her sleep. He doesn't like thinking so much on this.

He misses those days of rivalry as much as she does.

He hopes that he's right-- that even if they can't fight anymore as equals, they'll always be rivals. That he has nothing to worry about, because she's a woman who doesn't think like a woman, and she's far different than his mother could ever hope tobe. He finally manages to sleep just a couple of hours before dawn. Yukiko wakes with her son nuzzling one breast and her boyfriend the other. _One_ of them gets kicked out of bed.

But all good things, even the life that the two of them have relunctantly set up with each other, must come to an end.


	10. A Connection

At long last, Yukiko gets accepted to a university.

For the first time in a long time, she feels that something is finally going right. She immediately feels guilty for the thought, because it wasn't as though there was anything _wrong_ with having had her baby.

But she wants to stop being defined as a woman and a mother, and wants to go back to being herself. The months that she's spent working with her foster father have shown her that she's really much better at _leading _people than she is at raising them.

School is a nice change of pace, and it's something she's missed. Even though she has to lie and state that Sanada Yuki was a cousin of hers who now studies in the country, she's able to be among people her age for the first time in a while. She makes friends, she laughs, she learns, and she begins to come out of that shell she was afraid she had begun to build for herself out of pure necessity and loneliness. The past year has taught her that she hates being alone.

It's hard though, harder than she likes to admit. The college is close enough for her to live at home with her child, but she still spends long days in class or in the library studying, and when she comes home, the baby is frantic to see her. She's just as frantic to see him, letting him cling and cry on her until she's soothed him with words that mummy's home and she loves him, and she missed him too.

"He's going to get too dependent on you," Tojiro scowls one night when she tucks the baby into the bed next to them again. Daisuke seems to sleep better when they let him share their bed.

"I'm his mother," she points out, glancing back at the man. "He's just a baby."

Tojiro doesn't respond with anything but a snort, and rolls over to face the other way in a huff. They haven't been able to do much of _anything _since she started school. No fighting, no sparring - they don't even argue outside of snappish responses to questions. As much as he didn't think he'd care, they've even stopped 'fighting' in bed. Tojiro spends more and more time at college, and Yuki frequently wakes up to find he hasn't come home at all.

More and more often, she crawls into Saizou's bed like she had when they were children. But of course, they're no longer children at all. They're both adults, with their own desires and needs, and she tries not to cry or even _feel _upset as she clings to Saizou in the dark. She knows he doesn't like it, but he's never denied her anything else before.

This is not how she imagined her life would be.

She hates being a woman. Sometimes, she hates being a mother. It's a shameful thing to think because Daisuke is innocent of all transgressions, but she still imagines that _generals _never had to do this.

One day, she brings the baby with her to sign some paperwork for a course and pick up a test result. Her classmates know she has a child - she's been called out of the class in the middle of the day because of an emergency with him before - but she's never actually brought him around. He's never been around so many people before in his short life, and he's shyer than either of his parents in that regard, ducking his face and hiding it against her, glancing out only every so often to watch the crowds.

The stigmatization of being a young, single mother still remains. Only one of her classmates seems to take interest in him, which is strange, because Yukiko actively tries to avoid this particular girl.

"Hehe, this is little Daisuke, is he? It isn't a good fit, is it?" Both Yukiko and Daisuke are so startled by the girl's sudden appearance that they both can only stare. "He's cute, though. Looks a lot like you."

"Thank you?" Yukiko replies, hefting the baby from one hip to another (away from the girl, though subconsciously). "I don't think I really know your name..." They haven't been introduced, and she's a little annoyed the girl's acting so familiar without an introduction. She's seen her before - but it's hard not to remember this woman's looks. Tall and pretty, the clothing she's wearing is both eccentric and revealing, and Yukiko feels uncomfortable standing next to someone who stands out so much. Both a baby and this girl are attracting attention.

"Maeda Keiko." They shake hands. "So you're Sanada Yukiko, right? Is it true you pretended you were a boy in high school?"

Yukiko's slight wince tells the story. So that had gotten out, had it? Ignoring the invasion of privacy, Keiko walks with her through the halls toward her professor's office. He isn't there. "It looks like he's not going to be back for another hour. Are you hungry? I'll buy you lunch."

Yukiko isn't hungry, but it seems that the baby is, and as he fusses slightly, she gives in. "All right." It can't hurt and she needs more female friends her age.

In the next hour, Yukiko learns more about Keiko than she would have liked to. She's a senior, but had been holding off on taking some particular courses until her last year. That's when she'd noticed Yukiko. "You're very unique looking," the older woman points out, as she tries to sneak a cookie to Daisuke. "I thought you were pretty."

The compliments are a bit easier to take now, though still strange. At least this occupies her time.

"So how did this little guy come about?" Keiko's taken to holding him on her lap in exchange for a piece of a cookie. It's a bargain his mother isn't exactly happy with, but it's keep him occupieding. She'll let Tojiro deal with him later if he gets too hyper, he likes playing with him. Keiko's question takes her off guard, and she flushes violently. How forward!

"How... how--!" She's flustered and doesn't know quite what to say. "He was just... he wasn't planned." It seems too cruel to call him an accident or a mistake.

"Your boyfriend, huh? I've had that happen before." Keiko changes the subject. "Is your boyfriend cute?"

"He isn't..." Yukiko isn't sure what Tojiro is anymore. With the birth of their son, the rivalry has died almost completed, but when she had entered college, they'd almost lost each other completely. They compete around the house, in cleaning and cooking, but they can't fight on equal grounds anymore. It's as though the spark between them has disappeared. It's a depressing thought, and upon seeing Yukiko's downcast expression, Keiko changes the subject again. "You should hang out with us some more. You really need to meet more people, you know? It can't hurt."

Meet new people...

It's something Harunobu has been suggesting to her since she enrolled. When she left high school, she left behind many of her friends, and she's lost touch with most of them. Her college classmates are people far removed from the issues that she's spent the last year worrying about, and she doesn't know how any of them could ever understand her goals and her life. But Harunobu had reminded her, that she needed to connect to people in order to work with them and deal with them, and if she was to be a general, she needed to gain the trust of those she commanded.

Yukiko agrees to Keiko's demands.

The woman is surprisingly a good influence on her. Though she's still strange and sometimes incredibly eccentric, Yukiko soon learns when she's joking and when she's serious and (most important of all) when to completely disregard anything that she says. The woman has her own mysterious ways of doing things, and while Yuki can't imagine ever possibly going to the extremes that Keiko does, she learns the importance of being flexible. Perhaps that lesson comes a bit too late.

But from Keiko, Yuki learns important things. That being a woman doesn't maker her weaker or more stupid, and it doesn't give her any sort of disadvantage. That as a woman, she has one very strong advantage that a man won't have in the business world. Sex appeal. The thought is strange to Yukiko and feels a bit like dirty tactics, but she as to admit that there's some merit to this suggestion. It gives her some hope. Especially when she sees the results of the first meeting she has with board members wearing the wardrobe Keiko specifically picked out for her.

It's through these meetings that Yuki meets Otani Aki. A new employee much like herself, he's the adopted son of one of their senior members and she remembers him vaguely from business meetings that had happened in their home as she'd grown up. Most of all, she remembers the time she'd thrown bugs at his head.

As the two newest members in the company, they're assigned a project together. Aki is a nice man, with a good head on his shoulders, and as she finds out accidentally the first time they go on a trip out of city for a weekend... he has a good head between his legs, too.

"Please accept my apologies," she tells him afterwards when they're dressing. She's too embarrassed to watch her speech. They're about to be late for the meeting they've travelled for, and she feels as though she's cheated on everything she holds dear. They'd sampled too much of the wine that had been left out, and Yukiko had always been a light-weight. She barely remembered the previous night, other than hot flesh and hot breath. How mortifying and worse, how completely unlike her. "I don't usually do those things." How could she face her friends after this?

"I don't either. Forgive me, Sanada-kun." They both find it difficult to work together the remainder of the trip.

He's so embarrassed that he sends her a present of sweets for forgiveness and it's so sincere that she can't help but forgive him. They grow closer, despite the initial awkwardness of the relationship, and Harunobu seems to give his approval. "He'll be good contact for you to have," he tells Yuki after a late business meeting. Aki had personally wished a good night, and she'd been unable to stop blushing at the look in his eyes. She doesn't like the sound of what he says, for once in her life.

Aki helps, though, as much as she's embarrassed to admit. He's a little older than she is, but they had the same major. When she stumbles in her classes and Saizou can't help her, Aki is there with his own papers and experiences. Through their extended contact, even allowing him to meet Daisuke on the days she brings the toddler to work with her, she learns that she likes him a lot.

But there's something missing Something important.

Between work and school and raising her toddler son, she barely sees Tojiro anymore. They text more than they speak, and she realises she hasn't fought with him in several ... _months_ one night when she's putting Daisuke to bed.

"What are you doing?" She texts him later that night when she's finished reading a chapter for school.

He responds quickly enough. "Studying." He's always studying.

"Want to come over? We'll spar." It was a suggestion made out of desperation. As she grew older and more experienced, even Yukiko had to admit that the days of physical fighting and training were over. Her skills as a businesswoman and as a tactician would be more important for her lord. She kept in shape - she didn't think she could ever stop wanting to exercise - but she wasn't nearly as energetic as she used to be.

"No." The answer is simple enough. Yukiko is perhaps more disappointed than she admits to being, and goes into the basement to train off some steam.


	11. A Skip

The years pass in a whirlwind of studying, exams, more studying and growing up. Sometimes Yukiko thinks that she would lose track of time if it weren't for the progress of their son. Every time she turns around, it seems, he's grown taller and stronger, and he's learned to walk and talk. His first word is a curse word picked up from his father, and Tojiro is giving a stern talking to, something that amuses him more than annoys him. It's a rare thing these days.

Daisuke continues to grow and learn and Yukiko finds that she spends most of her time with him sleeping while he watches children's television. She remembers being his age, full of joy and wonder and energy, and she's decided by now that growing up is decidedly annoying. She doesn't even have the strength to play with her own child the way _she'd_ been played with as a child with her parents. This makes her feel like a bad mother, which is strange because Yukiko still doesn't know what makes a _good _mother.

Daisuke isn't the only one changing.

Tojiro moves out.

'Studying' hadn't been all he had been doing during college. The year he graduates, he moves out with an apology and a kiss to his son's forehead. "Her name's Mego," he explains to Yukiko as he finally tells her that he's leaving. That he's moving out of their home after his graduation, because there's someone else in his life. "She's... ah, she's pretty different from you. She studies art design and we were partners in class one day." He doesn't need to elaborate.

Yukiko thinks that perhaps she _should _feel betrayed, but she doesn't. In fact, it's a bit liberating and a bit of a relief if she has to admit to it. She's noticed over the past few months that Tojiro has slowly become his old self again. He jokes, he makes snide remarks. He's even let her arm wrestle with him over the kitchen table in the middle of dinner a few times. He may not be her lover anymore, but he would always be... himself. Her rival. And that was the most important thing, in her opinion. No one could ever replace him.

"Good luck." She tells him. "I'm still going to fight you, Date Tojiro." She means it. She never wanted him to be her lover, after all. Just her rival.

That makes him give her a cocky grin, and with a drawled "Bring it on" in the English she's come to understand and expect from him, they spend their last few nights together out in the back with Daisuke watching gleefully from the sidelines as his parents try again to best one another again. In the end it's a draw, it will always be a draw, but they part on good terms and the promise to fight again.

Mego's pregnant, Yukiko finds out later. The woman has Tojiro's daughter just a few months after he graduates and when she's shown pictures, Yukiko thinks that the baby looks so much like him. Saizou makes a remark that some men just never learn, but at least _this_ woman is going to become Mrs. Date Tojiro. He tries not to make it sting, and it doesn't, and Yuki just snaps that she's a _Sanada_ and not a Date.

Sanada Yukiko.

There's a sense of serene freedom in the emptier house. Yukiko's room is back to being her own, and even though Daisuke's just across the hallway, she feels like she has more space to herself than ever before. It's just her family in the house now, including Saizou, who's back to his old teasing-but-supportive ways. She feels the sense of longing in his touch at times, when she and her son both slip into his bed on cold nights, but she attributes that to the latest girlfriend he had just broken up with. She can't fathom it any other way.

Yukiko graduates. With the highest marks, of course, as if there were any question. Harunobu accepts her onto the senior board of directors, and though there's some initial grumbling, her skills prove her worth. At long last, she thinks, I've finally been able to fulfil at least a part of my goal.

Just because Yuki and Tojiro have officially separated doesn't mean they're not friends. Tojiro visits every other weekend and eventually brings along his new wife and their infant daughter. Kagetsuna comes along as well, much to her surprise and delight. He tells Yukiko that he now has a son of his own, and shows her pictures of Shigeru. She's happy for him and Tojiro seems happy as well, and she thinks that being a father fits the man who'd helped raise so many others before.

When Daisuke meets his younger sister for the first time, he is delighted at the prospect and the adults let him hold and play with the baby (under their supervision). He's just about to enter school himself, and tells his mother happily he's going to write a story about all about protecting his little sister. It's cute. It makes Yukiko think that he's more like his father than his mother.

Mego is a nice girl. She's polite and smart and creative, and doesn't tolerate Tojiro's attitude anymore than Yuki ever had. Yukiko likes her right away, even though Keiko tells her that she should probably dislike the girl who stole 'her man' away from her. Yukiko is quick to correct her; Tojiro has never been hers, but simply belonged to himself. It's the same way Yukiko has never belonged to anyone either.

Or at least she doesn't, until Aki proposes to her one day. They've grown closer over the years, made easier by the amount of projects they've undertaken together since her graduation. She likes him well enough, even if he is a bit dull and can't lift as much weight as she can. But he's kind and funny, and he complements her impulsive, hot-headed attitude with his calm demeanour and smart thinking. She enjoys working with him, and while they had gone out on dinner dates the past year, she'd never realised how much they'd grown on each other. Until now.

"I, Yuki-- I don't know what to say..." she finally answers when the shock wears off.

"Yes or no," he says with a shy smile. "But only what you feel is absolutely right."

The man knows her too well. She tells him that she has to think, and after confiding in Saizou (who says nothing but comments on Aki's facial expressions), Harunobu (who offers nothing but his support as her father) and Tojiro (who tells her to stop being stupid and do whatever makes her happy), she accepts. When Yukiko is twenty-six, she marries Otani Aki in a quiet ceremony. He takes on the Sanada name. But her own sacrifices is much harder; she moves out of the home she's lived in since she was a child, and into a smaller one for just her new, smaller family.

And for Yukiko, again, life is boring.

She wakes up early every morning for a jog before waking both her husband and her son. Daisuke is harder to get up in the morning than she remembers ever being and she sometimes resorts to literally throwing him out of bed. It's a sign of her love.

Harunobu is retiring soon, and after seeing Daisuke off to primary school, she and Aki both head to one of his offices that they co-manage. Harunobu's businesses are vast, and he's divided them among his children, adopted or not. Though her portion is small, she's already determined to increase its value as much as she possibly can. She promises. The men and women working under her have long adapted to her; both her gender and her fierce personality. One of them even compares her to her ancestor, a comparison she feels proud of.

Harunobu mentions that he's thinking of entering politics. Yukiko supports him wholeheartedly.

Yukiko's no longer a teenager, a girl living as a boy, who lives wild and free. Her employees know well she's a woman and woman not to be crossed, at that. She keeps in shape by running and weight-lifting, not by kendo training or sparring with friends. She's even noticed that the calluses on her hands are beginning to heal, something that distresses her more than she can admit to her husband.

Her evenings are spent with more 'mundane' 'adult' activities. Aki does most of the cooking, because even though she's a woman and a mother, Yukiko still has problems making food that's edible. In exchange, she does the heavy chores and the cleaning, and they both split up the responsibilites of ensuring that Daisuke is growing up well.

When she puts Daisuke to bed one night, she remembers her mother's words, long forgotten in the haze of memory. 'A special child who could do anything she ever wanted.' She repeats these words to her son, who's too sleepy to hear them correctly, and tucks him into bed. Yukiko doesn't _feel_ special anymore.

She and Aki have been considering having more children. Aki considers Daisuke his own son, even though Tojiro and his new family are still a large part of their life. They probably always will be. Even though he's growing well, Daisuke's well-being is still of concern to Tojiro. She doesn't know why, and she thinks that she never will, but it's something she's simply learned to live with. She trusts Tojiro more than she trusts almost anyone. Almost anyone.

It's... difficult. Yukiko loves her husband, there's no question about that. Together, the two of them make a good team and a good family, and she knows that he would be a wonderful father. But the spark between them is small and weak, a complete contrast to the fire that existed between her and Tojiro-- that rushing feeling of heat and excitement and blood boiling inside her veins. She shouldn't compare the two men and she tries not to, but when she's alone at night with Aki, she can't help but want _more_.

She finds that even Saizou is growing up and moving on. The man she'd once considered almost a part of her own body has moved to the opposite side of the city, far away from where she lives. Where before she could turn around and see him, she needs to call him before going over to his apartment. She sees him often enough, after Harunobu had convinced him to work in his businesses as well (just as Saizou's father had once done), but business is business for him. "I'm busy," when she tries to invite him over for dinner, though he won't tell her what he does. She knows that he'll always be there if she needs him, but there are times in the middle of the night that she wakes up and selfishly thinks she needs him _now_ and she's too late.

Growing up is not as pleasant as she'd thought it would be.

She will never be a general. But a business-woman and a mother, and perhaps one day she'll continue to expand and experience. But a general? Never.

"That's depressing," Tojiro tells her over the phone when she tells this to him one night. She's called to tell him Daisuke's grades, which are excellent, of course. In the background, she hears the sounds of his two young children and Mego calling to them. Life's been busy for him, and he's told her that he finally took over his family business a couple of years after his marriage. She'd hadn't known a Date family business had even _existed_.

But he's doing well for himself, and that makes her happy, because she still cares for him after all these years. It wouldn't be fair if her rival was miserable. "You're still Sanada Yuki, aren't you?" He continues, and though she can't see him, she can hear him smiling as he talks. "Who cares what you are?"

It is depressing, she has to admit, but that's what her life has become. Maybe she's glad.


	12. A Conclusion

Author's Note: This is the last real chapter of the fic, and does contain some sexual content. I may update more with some 'side stories' if anyone wants them, but enjoy the conclusion of the main story for now.

* * *

Sanada Yukiko is twenty-eight years old. Her son Daisuke is ten, and is asleep safely in his bed. Warm and cozy, he sleeps through the thunderstorm that's blanketed the city. Yukiko put him to bed herself, kissed his forehead and told him to sleep well because she would make sure that the lightning wouldn't harm him. Daisuke told her she was embarrassing.

Yukiko still has problems sleeping through storms. She watches the lightning tear the sky apart as she waits by the river. Though she's still afraid of its destructive power, every strike seems to fire up her soul until she feels as though it can't be contained.

"I'm here," she hears Tojiro say behind her through a lull in the noise, and she turns to see him. It's difficult in the darkness, but as a flash of lightning illuminates the skies, she sees him in crisp clear detail. The same shaggy dark-brown hair, covering the eyepatch that hides the remains of his right eye, gone in an accident that had happened long before she'd ever met him. That cocky grin, so self-assured and arrogant and the one thing she thinks she will never forget.

He's grown older, just she has. Stronger, perhaps. He's had more chances to hone his strength and skills than she has, but Yukiko is still confident that she'll be his equal. They're still _rivals_ after all this time, and no amount of time or change can affect that. She may never have become the general she wanted, but that doesn't matter in the face of this man.

Tojiro had come immediately when she'd asked him to meet her in their old spot. They'd both been waiting for this day.

She smiles, she grins, and through he can't see it in the darkness of the night and the gray of the skies, he can hear it in her voice. "Date Tojiro. I, Sanada Yukiko, challenge you."

He laughs at the idea, a sound that's almost drowned out by the crash of thunder. "_Bring it on!_" Some habits die easier than others. His English habit? Will probably never die.

Ignoring the rain and wind around them, the two of them fight. It's muddy and it's wet, and their footing slips several times, but they fight with a renewed vigor neither of them has felt in years. Perhaps it's the lightning in the skies that urges her on, sets her soul and fist aflame once more. Perhaps it's the wind that stings into her eyes and causes her to act on instinct alone.

Both punching and kicking, and neither able to overtake the other. Just as it should be and just as it always _will_ be, Yukiko hopes. Even when she's old and gray, this man should still be her match. Her clothes rip under the pressure of his fingers and she leaves bruises across his torso with each strike that lands, but they counter and match each other's moments as though time itself had turned back to a fateful meeting.

The night reminds her of the dream she'd had just before waking earlier tonight. Of lightning and fire ripping apart the darkness. She had heard her own voice - a voice that wasn't quite hers but it was - mixing in with that of Tojiro's until she knew that in this dream they had been victorious against whatever they'd been fighting. A monster, a demon, maybe even fate itself, she didn't know - just that they'd won.

They finally stop and manage to drag themselves to rest underneath the bridge. Age _has_ taken its toll on them, and they're little more than limp noodles as they collapse against each for breath.

"I almost had you there," she pants out, tugging at his mud-splashed shirt. It's ripped now, but she _had _told him to bring a change of clothes.

"_Hah_. If the lightning hadn't blinded me, you'd be in the river by now."

It's almost like being young again, she giggles as she leans her head back against his, glancing up at the skies. With the wind so fierce, the bridge offers little protection, and even lesser light. But it's enough for them to hear each other and talk, and that's all she asks for. She hasn't felt this happy in years, not since before the birth of her son.

"How's your family?" She asks him, shifting around a little so that she can lean her head against his shoulder. Topics she wouldn't have asked a decade ago, but things that are unavoidable now.

Tojiro's arm wraps around her to pull her more firmly onto his lap. The warmth is good, she decides and the air between them is hot in contrast with the chilly rain that batters their bodies. "It's good. Mego's having another baby."

She laughs. "I can't believe you." Her tone grows quieter. "Aki and I are... trying." Trying between working and raising their son.

"_Good luck_," he says, and she imagines for a moment that perhaps her new husband just isn't as frighteningly virile as this man. Perhaps no one is.

They sit for a while longer, both staring out into the rain. With the mention of their families, the atmosphere had changed again. They'd gone back to being adults with families to raise and careers to follow, instead of the rivals they'd once been.

"Are you ready for round two?" Tojiro finally asks.

She'd rather bask in the warmth for a while longer, but she's not going to disappoint him. She'll never back down from a challenge. "I am!" And though she makes to get up, his arms tighten around her. As she turns to ask him what he's doing, because she certainly can't fight him if they're like this, he leans in to kiss her. It's a firm, sure kiss that leaves no questions to what he's asking wordlessly.

Of course, she had forgotten.

Their competition spanned _all_ things, from their fighting and sparring to their cleaning abilities and grades and even the way they now move against each other in a battle abandoned long ago. As they throw all caution and reason and even pure common sense to the wind that whips around them and he kisses the heirloom necklace she's taken to wearing around her neck again. The necklace she intends to let her firstborn wear some day. Their firstborn.

For them, it's nothing but another fight, another competition, even as he leaves marks down the pale skin of her stomach and she draws blood from his back, still scarred from her nails so many years ago. They're both going to have difficulty explaining this to their respective spouses, but that thought is far from their minds as they gasp out each other's names. It hurts, she gasps against his ear, because he's being harsher than usual. With his wife, he's gentle and loving, and he tells Yuki in a hushed breath that she's the only one he can go "_all out_" on. She shouldn't feel smug, but she is.

Happily married to others they may be, but they will always have _this._

They pause only to move closer to the shelter of the bridge and away from the view of the street. She does feel a little embarrassed about the location, but the wind and rain and lightning are shelter enough and she can't imagine any other location she'd rather be right now. The grass is a soft, though wet, carpet and she _graciously_ allows him to press her onto her back, promising him that she'll pay him back for it next time. When he finally enters her, as harshly as he does everything, it's like she's been struck by lightning.

Up her stomach and through her body, she feels that energy thrumming throughout her veins. Her nerves all feel as though they're on fire, and he feeds that fire with each hard motion into her. She whispers to him, calls his name in a tone she hasn't spoken in over a decade, and he returns with cries of his own until neither one of them can talk or think or even do anything but breathe and fight. The air around them grows colder as the night and storm continue, but between them it's heated breath and heated movements. Over and over, they meet each other's blows and movements, and Yuki feels that were it not for the container of her body - a body she's cursed so many times until now - that her soul would explode into a million fireworks that could consume them both. It's pure, blissful instinct that moves them now, that instinct to match each other's motions and try to win.

It's dangerous and risky, but it's decidedly _them_, and when they're finally spent and reluctantly part, the storm has died down. It's still a few hours until dawn, and wet sky casts a gray light over their tired bodies.

Yuki feels a soreness in her bones she hasn't felt for years, and she stretches out, soaking up Tojiro's warmth as she leans against him. Her modesty is gone, gone with the storm. "It was a good fight," she tells him with a kiss against his throat.

Tojiro isn't faring any better than she. His arm draped heavily over her waist, he tilts his head back when she kisses under his ear, his eye slipping shut at the contact. "Hah. Like always," he replies in a hoarse tone. He too, hasn't felt quite like this in some time. He's glad he came.

The storm picks up again.

Once the sun rises, they'll part. They'll change into clean clothing and go home to their spouses. Yukiko will rouse her husband and stay with him for hours, still energetic and worked up from the battle she'd participated in. She loves him, she'll promise to him that morning when they embrace, and they'll celebrate the birth of a daughter nine months later.

But for now, what matters to Sanada Yukiko and Date Tojiro is this moment. This thrill of battle and this final fight, and of this fiery spark that exists between them.

It _was _a good fight.


End file.
